Data processing systems that concurrently perform multiple processes must have a means for synchronizing access to common resources that are shared by the multiple processes. Typically, data processing systems have provided such synchronized access to the shared resources by employing busy-waiting strategies. In busy-waiting, each process makes a request for a resource and waits idly until the resource is available. When the resource eventually becomes available, an idle process gains access to the resource. This approach provides adequate synchronization, but suffers the drawback that the processor must idle while waiting on the resource. One such busy-waiting approach that utilizes a software semaphore mechanism to bring about synchronization was proposed by E. W. Dijkstra in "Co-operating Sequential Processes", in Genuys, ed. Programming Languages, N.A.T.O. 1968. In particular, the proposed approach utilizes a busy-waiting locking semaphore to synchronize multiple processes' access to shared resources.